Feel free to DM me the company and I can give a quick analysis. (Ex-FB 8 year, E7 principal eng, A16Z backed startup now) - or share here if you are comfortable.
1. Ask them about runway. A company in great shape right now will have > 24 months of runway - which is unlikely.
2. If the runway less than a year, find out if they are actually making revenue, or if they are just burning through cash with no path to making money.
3. Look at their investors. If they are top tier investors, it might give them more options to keep the ship running if things get worse and absolutely they will have access to good advice regardless.
u/michaelnovati wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Feel free to DM me the company and I can give a quick analysis. (Ex-FB 8 year, E7 principal eng, A16Z backed startup now) - or share here if you are comfortable.
1. Ask them about runway. A company in great shape right now will have > 24 months of runway - which is unlikely.
2.
u/michaelnovatireplied·· edited
No idea why this is downvoted so much, can someone let me know why? EDIT: it's fine now probably trolls
u/Ok_Fee1043 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Are companies actually honest about runway in interviews/would anyone actually tell you? I’m not sure I’ve ever met with anyone who’d have been able to give me that answer in an interview (maybe they’d have said they could have someone get back to me), and I’ve met with many high
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I mean if you don't trust the people you talk to it might not be a good fit. Runway is based on projections so I would expect some wobbliness in answers but for them all to be generally consistent. Depending on how experienced you are, and what leverage you have you can try to get the most information possible, down to bank account balance.
For general startup advice:
1. What series and how much have they raised. This impacts their momentum and their valuation (i.e. your stock upside).
2. Investors. Look for top tier investors yeah. Investors do a lot of due diligence, so top tier investors means someone else vetted the founders and business model and it at least has a shot.
3. Founders. For engineers, look for tech-heavy founders, at least one of them, and top tier experience over many years. Running a company is hard, and 2 years at Google doesn't cut it. You want a top 1% engineer from a top company in the mix.
u/Muhznit wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
> If they are top tier investors, it might give them more options to keep the ship running if things get worse and absolutely they will have access to good advice regardless.
Has someone made an investor tier list somewhere for reference or something yet?
u/michaelnovatireplied·
There are some yeah! But it's subjective because you can look at investors in different ways:
* Size of funds. This is strictly based on how much money an investor has received from its investors. In theory, people with money want to give their money to investors that have the best returns. So the raw amount of money raised by an investor is one signal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_venture\_capital\_firms
* Returns. Some funds are small and scrappy but their people have a great eye for startups and have a great track record for returns.
* Specific partners. Some investment firms have notable partners in specific areas of specialization and seeing those names on a cap table might be impressive. e.g. [https://www.forbes.com/midas/](https://www.forbes.com/midas/)
Some names that come up frequently in silicon valley are: Sequoia, A16Z, Benchmark, Greylock, Accel.
u/adgjl12 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Opposite experience for me. Left big corp for start up and it's been great. Recently had a team member come back from F/G/M saying it was nice but not as fun. I think start ups just have greater variance so you have wilder swings of bad to good experiences and big corp you usuall
u/michaelnovatireplied·
\+1. saying all startups are bad is like saying all restaurants are bad
u/ltdanimal wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
I didn't downvote but the resume you give has FB front and center, which doesn't have anything to do with startups since you've been a part of them and can come across as pretentious.
u/michaelnovatireplied·
Ah, thanks for the feedback!
u/ltdanimal wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
>You want a top 1% engineer from a top company in the mix
Good advice in general but I'd disagree with this part. Rarely does a startup not succeed because they don't have elite engineering. You can make it with good engineering but can't with the wrong product. Being an incredi
u/michaelnovatireplied·
I just meant a strong engineer, or engineering team. The reason for this is I always want engineers to join companies where engineering and tech is most important and drives the company.